Studies on atheists

"We would like to present the results of the Atheist Survey collected on the UNM Albuquerque campus in April-May 2015.

Of the 56 self-proclaimed atheists and agnostics who completed the survey, 45 (80 percent) have at least one parent who believed in God, 35 (63 percent) believed in God as a child, and 42 (75 percent) began to doubt God’s existence prior to leaving high school.

Regarding what caused them to disbelieve in God, 41 (73 percent) answered study of science, philosophy or personal research and 15 (27 percent) cited life experiences. 39 (70 percent) believe in the Big Bang theory and 55 (98 percent) believe in evolution. To the question about what might convince them that God exists, 24 (43) said that adequate evidence or miracles might convince them.

Perhaps the least surprising result of this survey is the universal belief in evolution, since, if there is no God, the existence of life on Earth must have a natural explanation, of which the theory of evolution is the only one accepted by scientists. The universal association of atheism and belief in evolution suggests that the two beliefs are dependent so that, if evolution from microbes to man were proven to be impossible on a mathematical or scientific basis, the atheist would be required to believe in God, or some other supernatural power as the origin of life."[1]